bluearmyfaction

There was an earlier side; United London Scottish, formed 1883, playing at Queen's Park (in West Kilburn, I wonder if there was something of a sentimental choice in using it), wearing navy blue jerseys with a thistle embroidered thereon, and who lasted until 1887. I assume they folded into the Caleys.

...on the basis that you no longer own your penalty area. The madness of Staines Town

Weird one I remember is us getting midfielder Ingi Højsted from the might of B36 of Tórshavn, when we were still top flight. I think I was nearer to a first team spot than him.

Sensational.

Looking at English clubs in the period, the captain was usually the goalkeeper. The main exceptions being the Wanderers (which were Charles Alcock's creation) and the Royal Engineers (which may be down Captain Marindin pulling rank over the lieutenants, although their normal goalie was of the same rank). Perhaps Gardner suggested QP follow suit...

This is way before professionalism was a thing, it might simply be that some players were not getting their place in the team (after all there were very few matches then) or not getting their mates in. This is back in 1872-3, professionalism in England was not permitted till 1885 and in Scotland till (I think) 1893. In practice, under-the-counter payments seem to start in England circa 1877, the Lancashire mill owners basically enticing players down to bring in crowds to their fields. In 1879 V***a entice Archie Hunter down with a £200 downpayment for a drapery shop (supplier: club secretary William Macgregor), which was higher than the record transfer fee for the next 15 years. Incidentally, I think the website is pushing it to say Queen's introduced half-time and free-kicks into the game, half-time came into Association rules in 1870 and the free-kick in 1872 (bizarrely it seems before then the only remedy for a foul was not to allow any goal that resulted), but both were pinched from the Sheffield rules; the half-time change-over was in there from 1862 and the free-kick for a foul from March 1867. No idea re the crossbar though. I had thought that was down to Nottm Forest. Funny, I never thought about contacting the club.

Couldn't see a subforum for history, so thought I'd give this a go. Was looking through the History of Queen's Park 1867-1917 and there are quite a few slightly snarky references to a number of players decamping from QP to the new Clydesdale club; the goalkeeper Gardner and the Wotherspoon brothers for instance. Clydesdale seem to have faded away by 1880, possibly because they were too late to get the south Glasgow support, having sold out their ground to Rangers and moved closer to Queen's Park, and maybe unable to recruit replacements. But was there some sort of falling out that saw players quit QP for Clydesdale? I got the impression there was something of an undercurrent there.

Macheda had ten starts with us a few years ago and finished our leading scorer... Wasn't Audley Harrison a very late starter in the pro ranks? I don't remember that much hype about him. In motor racing, Stefano Modena and Jan Magnussen had monstrously good records in the lower formulae, Magnussen beat Senna's record for most wins in F3, but both flopped hard in Grands Prix. Didn't have the dedication to go with the talent. Magnussen didn't even give up smoking, Modena gave up in his debut GP because it was hard work.

German drivers were banned right after World War 2. Hans Stuck, a Grand Prix winner pre-war, suddenly discovered he was Austrian... To be fair, he was married to a woman who was half-Jewish, so not your archetypal Third Reich acolyte.

Was Boris Onischenko in the building?

Chap with the cane is probably one of the two umpires.

Oh, and there was a form in each annual for club secretaries to complete and send off. The foreword was often a pitch for more details to be sent.

Yes. 6 was the club secretary. I am guessing that the clubs that put their details forward (this is the Charles Alcock Football Annual) were those looking for fixtures outside their locality, hence advertising where to write. Note Queen's Park had not yet got their details in the book. Later years would have the place for changing facilities (usually a pub or hotel) and a summary of results. The first couple had membership fees. As for the rules flex, Madras would later adopt association, but then vanished quickly afterwards. The United Rules were Sheffield rules as adopted by clubs in the Midlands. Probably identical other than handball which changed a lot in Sheffield (the Sheffield clubs liked the fair catches because their pitches were often on hillsides).

Scottish football teams in 1870: (what does N.B. mean?)

We used it at school in the eighties and the big ITV highlights prog in the Midlands was Star Soccer. I think soccer has only fallen into derision because of the encroachment of American football from the mid-eighties. So proper football fans have been more aggressive in insisting on the word football to show up the Septic farce for being the fraud that it is.

I like the insinuation at the bottom of the page that there might be loads of bootleg Third Lanark pools.

Presumably that obviates the need for a play-off? Like when Aldershot went bust in the middle of 1991-92, Carlisle didn't get relegated for being 23rd out of 23, Aldershot were simply replaced by Colchester.

And another "what if?" is Jones' former team-mate Tony Brise, who, in their brief time together at Hill, actually lapped Jonesy in the wet...

It was Pryce who hit the poor marshal (a teenager called Jansen van Vuuren). The irony was the car that they were crossing the track to attend was Pryce's uber-slow team-mate Renzo Zorzi, whose engine had a minute amount of steam coming out of it. Van Vuuren's exinguisher killed Pryce instantly. The marshals were running across the track on the blind side of a brow, just as four cars came towards them. Pryce was overtaking Lafitte and slipstreaming another (I think Stuck) so when Stuck swerved at the last second Pryce did not have the chance to take avoiding action. Pryce should not even have been that far down - he had started from the back because of a car problem. He was the only Welshman ever to win a Formula 1 race (the 1975 International Trophy) and considered an astonishing talent. Lotus - who won the title in 1978 - had wanted him but Pryce wanted to stay loyal to the Shadow team that had given him a chance. There is a memorial to him in Ruthin. One of the unusual knock-on effects was that Zorzi asked Shadow to change his number from 17 (unlucky in Italy) to the 16 Pryce had been using. Which they did. But apparently Shadow somewhat froze Zorzi out, blaming him (in part) for not using the onboard fire extinguisher to get rid of the small fire, which was the thing that prompted the marshals to run across the track in the first place, and he was gone after Monaco.

The Stranraer programme looks like it fell through a time tunnel from 1957 and the Airdrie programme looks like someone had been let loose in the Letraset store-room. Fabulous selection of typefaces.

Can add Dominica to the "visited" list. Very very green because it's suffused with showers. And it has whales resident just off the coast. (went artistically monochrome with this one)

Also a legend at Birmingham City, and one of the many wonderful things about him was that he never belittled his League Cup triumph with us. It might have been something of an optional extra for someone with such a powerhouse team as that Celtic nine-in-a-row side. But he gloried in that as much as any Blue always has done. And always with a smile. He was a great half-time interviewee on his visits to St Andrews as well. Yet for many Blues who were there his greatest moment was the greatest sending-off in Blues history that does not involve Kevin Muscat. Against Fulham. For some reason Bertie had riled Johnny Haynes, otherwise mild-mannered, to the extent that Haynes swung a punch at him. Obviously Haynes was not au fait with Bertie's inner steel. He soon was. By the time the referee came over to send Haynes off, Haynes was lying unconscious. So too was Maurice Cook, who had come over to assist Haynes. Bertie glanced at the referee. "Oh, shall I go as well?"

I did eventually find it; despite being along a major road, it did not take much to find it rather bucolic.

10 years ago, when I went up to visit the ground, nobody I asked in the village knew where it was...

The original way of officiating the game was for the captains to agree decisions amongst themselves. From 1874 each side nominated an umpire to make those decisions. And if there were disagreement as to the decision, they would refer the matter to a neutral standing at the touchline - the refer-ee. 1891 was when it changed to making the referee the active decision-maker and not requiring an appeal or something referred to him. But that's why football has referees rather than umpires.